


If at First You Don't Succeed

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 08:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3930136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Owen sits back and wonders how something so easy could be so hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If at First You Don't Succeed

Sometimes, Owen sits back and wonders how something so  _easy_  could be so  _hard_.

He’d wanted to do it right. Once he realized that he might, possibly, have a more-than-passing affection for the littlest legacy, and that the twerp had been spending more than his fair share of time watching him right back, he’d gotten to planning. Asking Axel out on a date-date would get him punched, even if he’d done it where the other Rogues weren’t likely to hear. So they went on a smash and grab.

Nothing too exciting, just a store that sold security equipment. Ironically, it had a  _horrible_  response system, so they were long gone before the Flash ever got wind of the robbery. Afterwards, they sat on a roof, divvying up their earnings, Axel excitedly pointing out the kinds of tricks he could make with his half. And then Owen had tried to kiss him. He’d gotten within touching distance before Axel jumped up and ran off the roof, flying through the sky empty-handed. He’d frightened him off.

Later, Axel acted like nothing had happened, though he was less obvious with his staring. Which is about the time that Owen realized; the little shit was actually  _scared_  of him. Well, maybe not of  _him_ , but what he represented. Axel didn’t talk about girls, or have a porn stash that anyone knew about despite being just out of puberty’s icy talons. The rapt attention he’d been paying the Rogues’ newest member could have been indicative of something, and it set off alarm bells in his oddly-coiffed head. Owen was old enough, and experienced enough, to know that he was bisexual for a fact. Axel…probably wasn’t.

So he waited.

In retrospect, he wasn’t expecting it to take as long as it did. A few weeks, maybe, but not the months he ended up waiting before Axel came to the hideout with a black eye and a bruise on his chin. He’d asked out a girl from his school, the one Len still forced him to attend as often as he could. They’d gone to a movie. She’d went to kiss him at one point…and he’d punched her in the shoulder.

“It was friendly!” He whined, holding a bag of frozen broccoli to his eye as Mark about collapsed on the ground with laughter. “I didn’t think she was gonna sock me in the face!” Axel wrinkled his nose, then winced as the action tightened the skin around his bruises. “Girls suck, man.”

“Th’ good ones do.” Evan replied sagely, and then he and Mark were off again, chuckling and making fake jabs at each other. Axel scowled, shrinking in his chair. Owen only grinned.

He waited another two weeks, when the bruises and hurt feelings had faded, before trying again. Their bank vault break-in had been fairly successful, and while everyone else was off counting their money, Owen grabbed a beer and a soda from the fridge and set off in search of the blonde. He found him, unsurprisingly, on the roof. Axel seemed to like high places. He was tinkering with a bomb, but set it aside when Owen pressed the cold can to the back of his neck, sitting down next to him.

“So, good haul today.” It was meant to be conversational. If the kid felt like talking, he’d talk.

“I don’t think I like girls.” Axel confessed, picking at the tab of the can with his fingernail. This was the first time they’d been alone together since Owen’s aborted attempt at intimacy. “I mean, they’re alright? But I don’t think…maybe I asked out the wrong one. But, I mean.” He was straining, looking for the right words. “She had red hair.” He finished lamely, shrugging. Owen snorted.

“So then try guys.”

The statement hung in the air between them for a few minutes. Owen took a drag on his beer, while Axel’s eyes darted between Owen’s mouth and his still-unopened can.

“You need me to open that for y-”

The word died in his throat as strong fingers wrapped around his upper arm, tugging him down until their mouths met in a clumsy kiss. His eyes slid shut, unheld arm snaking around Axel’s waist to pull him closer. After a few more seconds, Axel pulled his head away to breathe, resting his forehead on Owen’s chest.

“Um. I’m kind of an asshole.” Owen snorted again, palming the blonde’s lower back. “No, seriously. I mean, I kind of figured that I was…yeah. After the thing on the roof and. Look, you’re  _super_  hot and I just need to know right now if this is something that the other guys put you up to, because that’s seriously fucked up, but also something they’d do.”

Owen tilted Axel’s face up by placing his knuckles underneath his chin, and dropped a light kiss onto his forehead.

“You  _are_  an asshole.” He agreed, and Axel grinned. “But you’re not an idiot, and I happen to have a thing for blondes that are smarter than I am. So, what do you think?” The shorter Rogue thought for a moment, or at least pretended to, then gave a genuine smile.

“I think…I think I like  _you_. So if you’re not, y'know, too against the idea of helping me find out what else I like over time…” He trailed off, and Owen took that unspoken ellipses as a good thing. He could go slow. Hell, a snail’s pace was better than full stop any day.

In a decision he almost immediately regretted, Owen let go of his smaller partner. “I can live with that. So…” He arched a brow, and Axel burst out laughing.

“You  _don’t_  get to meet my mom, I’m  _not_  calling you my boyfriend, the other Rogues will  _never_  know, and open this can.”

As he popped the tab on Axel’s soda, Owen let out a little sigh. This kid was going to make him work for everything he got, he could feel it.


End file.
